Friz In 3 Parts
by Too Old For FanFiction
Summary: 3 Friz Scenes
1. Chapter 1

~ One ~

"Are you sure Kiki isn't going to come walking in?"

His hands keep moving for a couple moments before his eyes flick up to meet hers, one eyebrow lifting in questioning curiosity. "Are we doing something indecent?"

"Well, no, but…" Elizabeth trails off as she repositions her legs and settles her sketchpad back across her knees. She has taken up position on the floor, initially liking the angle of perspective it gave her, but she had not thought through how uncomfortable it would become on her limbs and back.

"But?"

Franco's eyes are already back to his own work, hands moving at their frantic, seemingly thoughtless pace again. Elizabeth closes her own eyes and listens carefully for the soft whispery hiss of charcoal across paper.

"But doesn't it look a little…weird…that the two of us are sitting here like this? In total silence?"

"Well…" His brows furrow in consideration while one finger absently caresses sharp lines into smudges. "Kiki knows that I'm an eccentric genius, but you... You're right; she might think you're weird."

She smiles at his teasing and picks her own pencil back up. Her own sketch is slow-going. It's her hands. They feel heavy and clumsy, her fingers rusty, no longer accustomed to any serious drawing.

"You're doing that thing again."

Elizabeth freezes. "What?"

"Tapping your pencil against your lips."

"How could you even see that?" she asks, dropping her hand back down to her sketchpad. "You've barely looked up this entire time."

He smirks. "Elizabeth."

"It's just not turning out right. You're too…."

"Hmm?"

"Do you think you could…"

"Think I could what?"

She sets the sketchpad and pencil down on the floor and uses her hands to press herself up to her feet. His hands stop completely when her knees gently bump his as she comes to a stop in front of the couch, and his heart nearly stops as her fingers brush against the top button of his shirt.

"Loosen up a bit?" she asks, and the button easily slips out of place, exposing the barest amount of skin.

"Why, Nurse Webber, weren't you just worrying about being indecent?"

Her fingers have already undone buttons number two and three. "Worried about being caught," she corrects him. "Besides, we're just sketching." Button number four. "Right?"


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note: This was going to be my third and final scene of this triology of scenes, but I am having such a hard time figuring out the middle part and this just came out so easily I didn't want to wait to post it. Hope you enjoy and we'll just have to see what happens next.

* * *

 **~ Two ~**

Franco smiled warmly as he slid his arm around the young woman's slender waist and pulled her into his side. "How's it going, Kiddo?"

"Well," Kiki drawled, tilting her head slightly to indicate over her right shoulder, "I won't deny that that's a bit unsettling."

His eyes followed her gesture, but he would have known what she was getting at without even looking. Standing at one end of the kitchen island Hayden was in the middle of the horde of enthralled boys, cheerily slopping white frosting glue on ginger bread as little hands attempted precarious feats of holiday architecture. At the other end, Hamilton Finn leaned forward on his elbows, obviously content just to watch the spectacle.

"Yeah, that's gotta be awkward," Franco agreed. "Are you ok?"

"I do miss my dad, but I'm a big girl," she assured him. "A guy can't do anything about looking like someone else, right? What about you?" she hastily changed the subject. "You look really happy."

Franco drew in a deep breath and tipped his head, letting his cheek rest against the top of Kiki's head. His gaze shifted away from the kitchen to the couch nearby where his own father was sitting with Laura Spencer. Their tones were hushed and their posture nearly conspiratorial. Nostalgia shone in their eyes as they both smiled in that familiar way that only people with long and tangled pasts can.

There was motion on the far end of the room, just past the couch, and Elizabeth appeared at the bottom of the stairs. Snow had been coming down steadily for most of the evening and she insisted that Audrey stay over night instead of going back home, so she had gone upstairs to get her settled in. She lingered there for a moment, her own eyes taking in the whole room, before making a bee-line over to the tree where she began fussily rearranging ornaments, un-clumping them from the bottom at child-height and re-distributing them higher up.

For a moment the light seemed to catch tears in Elizabeth's eyes and instinctively Franco's body tensed. He glanced down to excuse himself from Kiki, but she was already sliding away from him, also having seen what he had, and moving toward the child-swarm in the kitchen.

"What's happened? What's wrong?"

Elizabeth shook her head. "Nothing. Nothing's wrong."

As she reached up with another ornament, Franco caught her elbow and gently turned her to face him. The twinkling fairy lights made her eyes sparkle even brighter than usual and his thumb caught a tear as it rolled down her cheek. "You're crying."

Her cheeks suddenly flared pink and she pulled back, hands coming to her face, wiping at her eyes. "I'm ridiculous," she chastised herself.

"What? No. No you're not. Just tell me what's wrong."

"Nothing's wrong," she repeated, but now she smiled. It was a small, embarrassed sliver of a smile, but still a smile.

"What am I missing?"

Elizabeth slid her arm around his and turned him back to face the room. "Look," she whispered and stepped closer, into his side. Her hand came up slightly and she gestured at Laura and Scott. "Parents." Her finger swooped left to the boys who were now eating sugar cookies and laughing at Kiki. "Children." One more finger-swish, like mapping the points of a constellation, coming to land one last time on Hayden and Finn. "A sister. This is the first family Christmas I've had in a really long time."

"And me?"

Her face crinkled, perplexed for a moment, unsure if he was serious or not. "You?" When she turned her face up to his, the earnestness of his question was as clear as day. Her hands came up and tucked his hair back behind his ears, letting her fingers brush against the short growth of beard on his cheeks. "Oh my god, of course and you, you ridiculous man." Elizabeth had to push herself up on her tiptoes to be able to reach her lips to his. "Merry Christmas, Franco."

Elizabeth squealed when he caught her up in his arms and pulled her into him so tightly that her feet came off the floor as he whispered softly against her ear, "Merry Christmas, beautiful."


End file.
